CHAPTER XV.
"I think I would like to go for a walk, daddy, if you are going home, and will see that mother is all right."
"Yes, I will take care of mother. Are you very tired, dear? I am afraid you must be, you have worked very hard looking after us all so well."
Audrey smiled up at her father, but it was rather a wistful smile. "No, I am not exactly tired, but I feel as if I wanted a walk."
"I expect you do, you have been shut up in the house so much. Well, I will hurry home now; and you will be back in time for tea?"
Audrey nodded, and, with a sigh of contentment, turned up the winding road which would presently lead her out on the moor.
Granny Carlyle's visit was over, and it was as she and her father were turning away from the station after seeing her off, that there had come to her suddenly a great desire to be alone, to be out on the great, wide, open, silent moor, where she could think and think without fear of interruption.
At home there was so little time for thought, and she had so many things to think about. Only yesterday granny had said: "Well, Audrey, and are you coming back to me when the year is up?" And Audrey, shocked at the thrill of dismay the mere suggestion sent through her, had tried to tell her as gently and kindly as possible, that she could not be spared from home, at any rate, until Joan was some years older.
"Even when mother gets about again, she will not be fit for hard work," she explained hurriedly, "and, of course, there is a lot of hard work. Father says we can't possibly keep another servant, for there will soon be the governess to pay, as well as Mary and Job Toms."